LABOUR AND POLITICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16487, 28 February 1914, Page 13

LABOUR AND POLITICS.

PROSPECTS IN DOMINION

ONION SECRETARY ON THE MASSEY GOVERNMENT.

By Telegraph—Press, Association—Copyright, (Received February 27, 12.20 p.m.) SYDNEY, February 27.

Speaking at a, meeting of the Labour Council, Mr O’Bryne, secretary of the Invercargill Timber Workers’ Association, said that the prospects of Labour in New Zealand politics were never brighter than now. A real Tory Government was in power in Now Zealand at present, and under it it was hard for the Unions to-make headway, but the treatment meted out by the Massey Government did more to organise and consolidate the Labour forces than it. was possible for. the Labour organisers to do. At the same time, as a result of the Government’s oppressive administration, ho was convinced that Labour was going to sink Mr Massey and his Government next election a. thousand fathoms deep in the ocean of oblivion.

Replying to an. interjection about free labour, Mr O’Bryno said that industrial matters had quietened in New Zealand *of late,- but if they treated the free labourers over there as New South Wales had done on<several oecitfhons there would have been fewer freo labourers in the dominion and much less industrial strife.